But for months, Halmos and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were unable to come to terms on a plan to remove the yacht.

Owner Peter Halmos has spent two years trying to break Legacy free of the reef – and the bureaucracy.

According to Vanity Fair, contractors hired by Halmos devised a number of schemes to free Legacy, including using the 5,000-foot ingress route crated when the hurricane dragged Legacy across the flats, lining it with giant sandbags and using a special foam to float the yacht through the channel. Another plan involved building a thousand-foot metal sleeve around the boat and flooding it with seawater to float the boat toward a neighboring channel.

NOAA special counsel, Craig O'Connor, said that there were "misunderstandings and miscommunication," and that some of the early removal suggestions appeared too damaging to the environment, such as a very real concern that the walls of the channel could be damaged during the rescue operation, sending millions of gallons of seawater into the flats, destroying them and costing Halmos millions in fines.

"Our people wanted to be sure they understood what Peter was doing," O'Connor said. He added: "Aside from the fact that Peter is a colorful person, I find him to be a person of high integrity. We could be dealing with somebody who could care less about the environment."

The two sides finally came to an understanding in January – Halmos will have to replant the damaged seagrass at his own expense. But then they had to work out the details of the plan to extricate the boat. And then a diving company had to make a special pump.

10 FEET PER DAY

Finally, in mid-September, workers from a salvage company began operating a machine that uses powerful streams of water to cut into the sea bottom in front of the Legacy. A boat hundreds of yards away is using a large winch and two heavy cables to pull the boat into deeper water.

The work is said to be going well, though the Legacy is moving only about 10 feet per day. With a total of about 1,300 feet to be covered, the job will take several weeks.

"There's been some red ink that last couple of years," Halmost said. "Luckily, I have enough zeros after my name that I can absorb it."

After the wreck, Halmos, his captain and two crew members stayed aboard Legacy for six months. They had telephone service, satellite television, even a chef, but no toilets until they fashioned some from re-sealable paint buckets. Halmos told Vanity Fair he spent those first months in relative luxury, swimming, fishing and watching movies.

Later, Halmos and his crew began staying on eight lashed-together houseboats nearby. The floating compound, surrounded by a fleet of tenders, flatboats and infaltables used to get to and from Legacy, is Halmos' headquarters. His wife continues to live at the couple's house in Palm Beach County.

"There's lunatics who come out here and try to go aboard, and I have to come out here and tell them that I'm going to blow their heads off," Halmos said.

He's not kidding.

Four months after the storm left Legacy grounded, Halmos told Vanity Fair he was visited by a group of "modern day thugs" who arrived on inflatables. While they claimed to be salvage experts hired by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and threatened to have Halmos arrested if he did not let them board, Halmos would have none of it. Aiming a rifle at the intruders, he threatened to shoot.

Halmos learned later that the men were salvagers hoping to claim Legacy.

But life has not been all bad. Given the beauty on and around his houseboat – fish swimming near the surface, a gaggle of cormorants, seagulls and pelicans, the salty smell of the ocean mixing with the scent of sweet jasmine – it is not at all certain Halmos will leave once the Legacy has been freed.

"People who spend some time out here genuinely feel there's a healing aspect to it," he said. "I'm sensing there's something meaningful here. I can't see myself resuming the life I had onshore. I can't even envision it."